Belkin N1 Vision review

Draft N wireless, complete with bells and whistles

Our Verdict

Brings some interesting features and a surprising amount of glamour to the world of wireless networking

For

Painless setup

Clever 'guest pass' system

Against

Pricey

Some features seem unnecessary

So the N1 Vision is basically a router with a screen, isn't it? Indeed, so rather than focusing on the traditional router functions, we'll talk more about what's new. The setup is seamless and is disc-less. The screen is undoubtedly a luxury, but it's handy.

As we mentioned above, one of its cleverest features is to hand out 'guest pass' security keys to your guests. You can also use it to view the amount of data downloaded by each connected client PC as well as allowing you to monitor your upload and download speed.

The latter feature is surprisingly less useful than we thought it would be; a description that could be applied to several of the other views.

Performance of the draft 2 specification is a lot more stable and works with standard 802.11g wireless adaptors, which is what you'll probably be using. Once again, though, the draft 802.11n's boon is range, which is superb in terms of cutting out obstacles even in our busy office environment.

But can you justify the outlay for the screen? Only you can decide on that one.

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